9. Susan #2
Mrs. Gable's face falls. She adjusts her glasses, pulling a clipboard from beneath the counter. "I was just about to call the farm, honey. I've been tracking them through the regional system."
My stomach drops. The tone of her voice is wrong. "Did they die in transit? The heat packs should have lasted..."
"They didn't die in transit, Susan." Mrs. Gable taps a manicured fingernail against the clipboard. "They were intercepted. Rerouted at the county-line sorting station."
I grip the edge of the wooden counter. "Intercepted? By who? You have to show identification to pick up live agricultural shipments."
"Someone's been signing for them," Mrs. Gable says gently, her eyes darting nervously toward Alas before snapping back to me.
"The digital signature just says 'Proxy.
' They showed up with your routing numbers and paid the holding fees in cash.
Not me, Susan. I tried to flag it with the postmaster, but the paperwork looks legitimate on the regional side. "
The floor tilts. The implications hit me with the force of a physical blow, though I refuse to use the cliché. This isn't a logistical error. This is a siege.
The Silver Serpent Syndicate didn't just file fake right-of-passage paperwork to steal my south trail. They’re actively choking out my supply lines.
They know how a bee farm operates. Without those three queens, my most aggressive colonies will collapse into chaos.
They’ll swarm, abandoning the hives, and taking half my honey yield with them.
The farm will hemorrhage money. The Syndicate is trying to starve me out of my own property.
"They have my routing numbers," I whisper, the realization burning like acid in my mouth. "They know what I'm ordering."
Heat radiates against my back. Alas steps closer, his chest pressing lightly against me. The physical contact is a grounding wire, snapping my spiraling panic back to reality.
"Print the tracking history," Alas orders. His voice is a low, dangerous rumble that echoes off the tile walls.
Mrs. Gable blinks, startled by the command in his tone. "I'm sorry, I can't release federal records to?—"
"Print it." Alas doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't have to. The quiet certainty of his demand leaves no room for debate.
Mrs. Gable swallows hard, hitting a button on her keyboard. The dot-matrix printer behind the counter whirs to life, spitting out a single sheet of paper. She hands it across the counter.
Alas reaches over my shoulder, taking the paper with his bandaged hand. His eyes scan the numbers, burning them into his memory. He memorizes the time stamps, the county-line address, the moment the shipments were diverted. He folds the paper once and slides it into his front pocket.
"Come on," he says to me, his hand settling on the small of my back.
"Thank you, Mrs. Gable," I manage to say, my voice sounding hollow.
We walk out into the bright morning sunlight. The cold wind hits my face, but it doesn't clear the fog in my head. I stop on the sidewalk, staring blindly at the hood of my truck.
"They're starving the farm," I say, the words tasting like ash. "If I don't get those queens, Colony D will swarm by the weekend. The others will follow. The yield will drop by sixty percent. The bank will foreclose by December."
Alas steps in front of me, blocking the sunlight, blocking the street, blocking everything except his dark, scarred face. He grips my chin, tilting my head up until I’m forced to look him in the eye.
"I'll get them," he states.
"They're at the county line, Alas. That's Syndicate territory."
"I'll get them." The feral, unhinged devotion in his eyes is terrifying and beautiful. He isn't making a promise. He’s stating a future fact. "They don't touch what's mine. Your farm. Your bees. You. Mine."
The sheer certainty in his voice cracks the final remaining piece of my armor. The possessive claim doesn't feel like a cage; it feels like a fortress. I nod once, leaning my face slightly into the rough pad of his thumb.
We climb back into the truck. Alas slams the truck into gear, peeling away from the curb with a screech of tires. The drive back to the northern edge of town is silent, but the silence is charged with the impending violence of the war we’re currently walking into.
As we hit the dirt road leading up the mountain, the tactical radio clipped to Alas's belt crackles to life in the quiet cab.
Static. Then, Vice President Austin's voice, clipped and professional. "Alas. Come back."
Alas doesn't slow the truck. He unclips the radio with one hand, holding it near his mouth. "Go."
"Sheriff's scanner just lit up," Austin's voice echoes through the small space. "County clerk's office reported vandalism on the south trail. All survey markers destroyed. Syndicate lieutenant is mobilized. They know who ripped up their paperwork. Retaliation is imminent."
Alas stares straight ahead at the rutted dirt road. "Copy."
"Logan’s making the final call," Austin continues, the radio static popping. "The gates close at sundown. You can still bring her in. Pack a bag. Bring her behind the iron. We can hold the farm empty."
The final offer. The club is giving us one last chance to retreat to the safety of the fortified MC compound. Evacuate the property. Surrender the dirt to save the civilian.
Alas lowers the radio. He hits the brakes, bringing the truck to a halt right at the property line. The white wooden hive boxes stretch out across the wild meadow in perfect, geometric rows. The mountain looms in the background, a silent witness.
Alas turns his head, fixing me with a look so intense it threatens to stop my heart. He doesn't give an order. He doesn't drag me out of the truck and throw me over his shoulder. The possessiveness inside him bows to my agency.
"Your land," he says, his voice a whisper. "Your call."
I look at the hive line. Two hundred colonies of bees.
Millions of lives depending on me. I look at the farmhouse where my grandfather taught me how to smoke a hive without burning my fingers.
I look at the honey shed where, just days ago, Alas shattered my isolation against the uncapping tank and vowed to bury anyone who stepped on this grass.
Retreating means losing. Running means giving the Syndicate what they want.
I turn back to Alas. The protective rage vibrating under his skin is anchored to my decision.
"Tell Logan we're staying," I say, my voice ringing clear and steady in the cab. "We hold the line."
A dark, lethal smile spreads across Alas's face. The pride radiating from him is unmistakenable. He clicks the button on the side of the radio.
"Negative, VP," Alas growls into the mic. "The farm stays occupied. Anyone comes up the south trail, they don't go back down."
"Copy that, prospect," Austin replies, a hint of dark amusement in his tone. "Give 'em hell. Out."
Alas clips the radio back to his belt and hits the gas, driving the truck the rest of the way up to the farmhouse.
We spend the afternoon fortifying. Alas moves with military precision.
He boards up the lower windows of the farmhouse.
He checks the sightlines from the front porch.
He cleans his combat knife, the scrape of the whetstone echoing across the quiet meadow.
I work the hives, moving methodically down the line, checking the frames, and making sure the sugar syrup feeders are full.
By the time the sun dips below the western ridge, painting the sky in violent shades of bruised purple and blood orange, the temperature plummets. The cold howls, crashing against the windbreak Alas built. The structure holds perfectly, sheltering the hives in a pocket of still air.
I fire up the smoker, the scent of pine smoke filling my lungs. Dusk is the most dangerous time to open a hive, but I need to check Colony D—the stubborn Russian hybrids.
Alas walks out of the tree line and joins me at the boxes. He doesn't wear a veil. He doesn't wear gloves. He simply stands beside me, an immovable object.
I pull the lid off Colony D. The bees boil up instantly, an angry, buzzing mass of protective heat. They form a dark cloud, circling the air, hunting for the threat. But the threat is standing right next to me, still.
The bees drift toward his bare arms. They land on the fresh white bandages covering his knuckles.
They crawl across his scarred forearms, their tiny wings vibrating.
They don’t sting. They recognize the apex predator in their territory, and they accept his presence. He’s their newly appointed guardian.
I slide the frame back into place and close the lid, puffing a final stream of smoke to calm the stragglers.
Alas watches the bees crawl off his skin and return to the wooden box. He turns his head, his gaze locking onto mine in the fading light.
"Mine," he says quietly, gesturing to the hives, to the dirt, to me.
"Yours," I confirm, the word slipping past my lips without a single ounce of hesitation.
The bond clicks into place, snug as a hive lid settling home. The two years of crushing, lonely responsibility finally lift off my shoulders, transferred onto the shoulders of the man standing beside me. I step closer, leaning my side against his solid arm.
Alas wraps his good hand around my hip, pulling me flush against his side.
His thumb digs possessively into my waist. We stand there in the mountain dusk, watching the south trail.
The Syndicate is coming. The war is at the doorstep.
But as the smoke drifts over the meadow, I know with bone-deep certainty that I’m where I’m supposed to be, and I’m finally not fighting alone.